


Dig Up Her Bones (But Leave The Soul Alone)

by canadasuperhero



Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6660400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadasuperhero/pseuds/canadasuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are places in the world that are so full of life and love death that they become more than just places. They become greedy, willful creatures who cling tightly to the children that live upon their bones and blood.</p><p>And if you leave them, they will not forgive you so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dig Up Her Bones (But Leave The Soul Alone)

**Author's Note:**

> Affectionately known as the Little Monster Child AU. These are drabbles that are not written in an particular order: Snafu-centric with some Roe in there. Because Doc Roe is the beacon of my shining heart and he always wheedles his way into things.
> 
> This is an AU where cities like New Orleans have grown to have personalities and powers. They become elementals in their own rights. These cities often produce half-breed children: youths who have the blood of the cities themselves flowing through their veins. Snafu is one such child. 
> 
> See end notes for playlist

**1.**

“He’ll be alright; just need to sleep some, that’s all.”

Snafu dragged his eyes up from the bed and over to where Roe had propped himself against the doorjamb, drying his hands off with a scrap of towel. Roe looked exactly like Roe always had since he’d known him; like winter had settled into his bones and frosted his skin. Tired, serene. It was an odd look for a Southern boy but Snafu wasn’t inclined to ask today any more than he had been the year before, just dropped his eyes to the water that still clung to the man’s hands then back to the bed Sledge was curled in. “That what your water tell you?”

“Something along those lines.”

Silence reigned for a moment before the creak of floorboards brought Roe to the bedside. The man sighed as he settled against the headboard, reaching over to tug the covers into neatness over Sledge’s shoulder. Snafu longed for a cigarette to give his own twitching fingers something to do, ached to fill the air with a fog of his own making and not the heavy, pressing hum of the bayou.

“War has its own magic you know.” Snafu grunted at him. Dismissive. “I ain’t funnin’ you, Shelton. You think something needs a solid form to have magic? T’were true, you and yours’d died when that hurricane washed your city away.”

“The fuck does this have to do wit’ Sledge? Boy’s deaf.”

“We’ve been bleeding out to war for s’long as we’ve been breathing, Merriell Shelton. If you don’t think it calls who it wants,” Roe smiled at him, all gentle edges and deep lines but his voice held all the heavy weight of his waters. “You’re dumber than a sack of shit.”

 

* * *

**2.**

    There is a city in America that feels much older then it is, as if transplanted from across the ocean. It’s streets and alleys bleed into each other with little reason from slum to mansion to pretty stone graveyard. Miss your way, which is beyond easy to do, and your wallet and throat are forfeit to the spirits. Find your way, which is just as easy if you know what to want, and you may meet some grimly little half-breed with pockets full of bones and wishes.

    The bricks of this city are shiny, painted bright colors to hide what is rotting  
underneath. It is a warren built to charm and trap any passing mayfly of a life. You may spend your whole life within it’s bounds and to do otherwise would be seen as the impetuousness of youth. It would be seen as folly.

    I wish I hadn’t committed this sin against my birthplace despite the siren call of violence and honor at my country’s whim.

    Since I have gone to war my imagination has expanded to take the warm, damp air of my city and warp it, sending me back in time. It delights in filling my senses with old drunks turned to corpses, the mayflies that linger around for the sweetness of their breath and sweat a more sinister insect. The heavy slap of rain against crumbling brick turn into the soft patter of dirt splattering in response to the shell bursts of rhythmic pounding from the couple below.  
  
I do not close my eyes until the morning sun fogs the streets with steam. 

    It is February. Mardi Gras; the city longed for this celebration. They had missed the swirl of bright greens, golds and purple. The release from work to throw beads and let loose. The release from worry of still-waning finances and too many dead men. To drink and pound their feet against the ground while fireworks threw flames and bursts sound into the air. They reaffirm the life of this city.

    I long to join them. I need to get away.

    I knew enough to head northeast from New Orleans, across the bridge into Mississippi. From there, I had no idea where I was heading. Or if I wanted to head that way at all. This escape had been a fleeting thought in the back of my mind in the months after I had stepped off the train back into the bosom of my birthplace. It should not have haunted me so now, shouldn’t even have crossed my mind in the half a year since.

    It was the curse of having left once before.

    The spirits are not kind to those who do not remain in it’s cradle.

 

* * *

**3.**

    The road to work is long. Rough stone still covers parts of the street —  where there is stone at all —  making the bus jerk and shake with every mile. No smooth streetcar in this ward, only ripped vinyl seating that pools the sweat of the people who were before you; thick and salty under your backside. 

    I share my ride with those tired Negro women in their sensible shoes and doughty uniforms and the men still clutching their bottles from the night before. None of them look to me with a smile or a jeer anymore. The women keep themselves to the back like they should, eyes lowered. The men used to jostle at my side, used to offer me drink between offering me insults —  friendly and not   —  like they had any right to treat me as a fellow. 

    I am not their fellow and they know it now. The city runs too deep in me for the likes of them. Slicks through me like thickening blood. It may have cost me a time or two walking myself to work, bloody knuckles and ruined shirts but they know it.

    I am not much of a fellow to any man, anyway, never was. A few men thought me better than I was but as they lie closer to the maggots then even I do, their opinions on the matter are suspect.

    It’ll be another half hour yet until I reach my stop so I lift my feet, brace myself against the seat in front of me and raise my cigarette to my lips. Smoke curls around my head and around the roof, swirling uselessly around and around in the heavy breeze from the windows as it grew thicker, unable to escape, pressed in from all sides. The drunkard across the aisle has fallen asleep on every worldly possession he owns and for a moment I imagine another in his place, dress uniform rumpled and tie straining for freedom from its pin. Sledge’d slept like a babe, I thought, with one fist tight under his cheek and the other hanging limp over the edge, fingers dangling loose and without fear that something might make a meal of the defenceless digits. Already I had heard every whistle of the train like the whistle of artillery fire and the mad carousing of men excited to return home as the unintelligible shrieks of gibbering Japs.

    “Wh’n’t you goes and sit yourself down with him, have you’self a feel, you like the look of him s’much, boy?” 

    Reality snaps back into place but all I do is roll my head against the sticky vinyl to blow smoke into the red eyes and yellowed teeth leering at me from over the seat I’m braced against. 

    The bus has gone quiet around me.

    I’ll be walking the rest of the way to work today.

 

* * *

**4\. Pre-Story (Roe-Centric)**

    Eugene is nine when he doesn’t drown.

    His mama pulls him from the murky water, her hands digging into the scratchy linen of his good Sunday shirt, clawing him back up. Under her wailing, Eugene could make out the sniffling of his siblings and he’s confused and concerned.  
  
    “Mama, mama,” He remembers trying to say, trying to slap her hands gently away as she heaves herself to her feet with himself clutched to her body like a new quilt. “Mama, you’re going to get your dress wet.”  
  
    She wasn’t too concerned about the state of her dress, of course, but at the time Eugene wasn’t sure what could be bothering her so. It wasn’t like he was hurt; the water just wanted to show him something. And when he’d finally dried out enough — shoved under their whole supply of thick quilts, with the room so stifling hot he nearly couldn’t breath — he’d tried to explain that. His mama banned him from the bayou anyway.  
  
    Still, it didn’t do much good in the end. The dishwater twirled around his forearms and tugged playfully at his fingers and the pitcher told him who was coming to visit that day. The wash-water, clouded and turned milky with the flour from his hands hinted at the burning of this batch of sweetbuns or that loaf of bread.  
  
    Water liked Eugene.  
  
    Never managed to save the baking, though.

**Author's Note:**

> MS MR - Bones  
> The Submarines - 1940  
> Dead Man’s Bones – Lose Your Soul  
> Emily Wells - Becomes the Color  
> To Kill A King Shirt - (Bastille Remix)  
> Delta Rae - I Will Never Die  
> Bowerbirds - In Our Talons  
> Woodkid - Iron (Slow Intro Remix)


End file.
